Now today, we're starting a new
section of the Book of Revelation. You might recall, well, you probably
don't recall, back in the first lesson, I gave you this little
chart. It's in the first lesson. And
what that shows you is the whole outline of the Book of Revelation.
The Book of Revelation, you might remember, is seven visions. what one writer called seven
different camera angles of the whole period known as the last
days, the last age, the gospel age, the new covenant age, which
spans from the first coming of Christ to his second coming.
And in the first vision, that was Revelation one through three,
that's Christ in the midst of the churches. Remember the seven
churches of Revelation. and what he called the seven
golden candlesticks in this world. And he dealt with each one of
those seven churches, Christ in the midst of his churches.
And what he did is he showed us the dangers that the New Testament
church, the gospel church, would face throughout the New Covenant
age, dangers of compromise, dangers of ungodly tolerance, things
like that, false doctrine. And then the second vision was
chapters four through seven, and that's where we saw Christ
opening and fulfilling the seven-sealed book of God's sovereign eternal
purpose, the seven-sealed book. Who is worthy to open the book?
The Lamb that was slain. Christ is the Lamb of God Remember
John said there's no, in John chapter five, no man in heaven,
no man on earth, no man beneath the earth was found worthy to
open that book. That seven seal book was the,
that was God's entire purpose. His entire plan throughout the
new covenant age. And then the third vision we
just finished in chapter 11 from Revelation eight through 11.
And that was Christ answering the prayers of his people. protecting
them from their enemies and vindicating them by executing in the seventh
seal, the seven trumpets of judgment. And we just, we dealt with the
seventh trumpet last week in the last of Revelation chapter
11. That was the second coming of
Christ. That was the final end of all things. Now we begin the
fourth vision in chapter 12. This goes from chapter 12 to
chapter 14. And what we see in this vision
is the New Covenant age from another angle. Look at verse
1 of Revelation 12. He says, There appeared a great
wonder in heaven. Now you might have this in your
concordance. That word wonder is a sign. And it says, a great sign in
heaven. That word is used also in verse
three, same word. And there appeared another wonder
in heaven, another sign. It's a sign or a symbol in heaven. And what I want you to understand
about this, when it says a sign in heaven or a wonder in heaven,
it's not talking about up in heaven. It's really a sign from
heaven. It's a heavenly view of this
particular angle of view of what's going to take place during the
last days and this view is this what we're going to see in this
fourth vision is Christ and his church continually throughout
the last age persecuted by Satan Satan who we're going to see
is under the symbol of the red dragon that's who the red dragon
is and his two agents, Antichrist, or we'll say the spirit of Antichrist,
first of all, in Antichristian governments, and then secondly,
in Antichristian religion. And that's what Revelation 12
through Revelation 14 is all about. That's the angle.
This struggle. As Satan, under the purpose and
sovereign power of God, is allowed to persecute the church. So that'll
just give you an idea of this. Look at what it says in verse
one of Revelation 12. There appeared a great wonder,
a great sign in heaven. And here's the first one. A woman
clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and upon
her head a crown of twelve stars." Now, who is this woman? This
is an unnamed woman. In the Bible, an unnamed woman
either refers to, in the positive, the church of the Lord Jesus
Christ, his bride, his wife, the bride of Christ, or it refers
in the negative to the false church, false religion like the
great whore Babylon that we'll be looking at later on. It's
an unnamed woman. Who is this woman? This, as I
said, what he's going to be talking about is the warfare between
Christ and his church and Satan and all of his followers. That
warfare has been going on since the beginning. You remember in
Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15, what did the Lord tell Satan? He said, I'll put enmity, that
is conflict, even hatred between thee and thy seed and the woman
and her seed, the woman's seed. And that conflict has been going
on. And it's a conflict here on this
earth. But we need to understand at
the very beginning that the outcome of that warfare has never been
in question. It has never been in jeopardy.
It has always been purposed, planned, and determined by God
that Christ and his church would win the victory over Satan and
his followers. Now, a lot of people, when they
go in talking about Satan, and I caution you on this, when they
talk about Satan, they act as if Satan is the equal counterpart
of God, and he's not. Satan is powerful, more powerful
than us. We really cannot defeat Satan. Now, you're gonna see the church
defeating Satan. But what you're also going to
see is that it's really Christ working through the church who
is defeating Satan. And so the victory belongs to
us because we're married to Christ. See, Christ is the victor. Oh,
death, where is thy sting? Grave, where is thy victory?
How in the world can we have victory over Satan, over sin,
over death, over hell? It's because Christ, our surety,
as our substitute, went to the cross and died for our sins and
established righteousness. You see, that's why we preach
righteousness so much in Christ, because Christ the Lord, our
righteousness, is our victory. Over Satan. And you're going
to see, we'll see that more next week in this Revelation 12. Because Satan, one of Satan's
main ways of attacking the church is through his accusations. Accusing
the brethren. Now what is our victory against
Satan's accusations? Go back to Zechariah, what is
it, chapter four? I can't remember, chapter three
or four, where Joshua the high priest was standing before the
judge, and he was in filthy rags, which is an emblem of his sin
and his depravity, and that's all of us by nature. And Satan
was the adversary accusing him. And picture yourself like Joshua
standing before the judge of all. And Satan is the prosecutor,
let's say. And he looks and he says, now
look at this guy. Look at Bill Parker there. He's
a sinner. All right? And you know what? He's right. I am a sinner. And what do sinners deserve,
according to the Bible? They deserve nothing but condemnation. The soul that sinneth must surely
die. They deserve nothing but death and hell. But what if somebody
steps in when Satan accuses and said, hold on, hold on. Those
accusations, those charges don't stick. Why? And of course he
told, it's related there in Zechariah chapter three that Joshua was
caught first of all because God chose him. and he's a brand plucked
out of the fire, that's redemption. He's been redeemed by the blood
of Christ. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? Now where's our victory there?
It's Christ that died, yea rather is risen and seated at the right
hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession for us.
So what you're going to see here, you'll see the victory of the
church But it's not victory of our own power, or of our own
will, or of our own goodness. It's victory because Christ is
the victor. We're in Him. So you see God
working through His church. Christ working through His people
to win this victory. Now another thing you're going
to see here, in this section, in this view, this angle, this
fourth vision, is this. That I, we're reminded of what
Paul wrote in Ephesians 6 and verse 12. Let me just read it
to you. I've got it written out in your lesson. And that's this,
that in this struggle, as we war against Satan, as we war
against the world, war against sin, war against the flesh, we
wrestle, we struggle not against flesh and blood. This is not
a physical warfare. This warfare cannot be fought
and won or lost with physical weapons. So any idea of Christianity
that causes people to take up arms in the cause of the gospel
is a false Christianity. I'm not talking about taking
up arms to defend ourselves. That's another matter. We can
defend ourselves. We can take up arms to defend
ourselves. But there's no mandate, there
is no just cause for a true Christian or a group of Christians to take
up physical weapons to promote the gospel. Paul dealt with that
in 2 Corinthians chapter 10. He said, the weapons of our warfare
are not carnal. You see, the weapons of our warfare
are spiritual. He wrote here in Ephesians 6,
12, he said, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but here's what
we struggle against, principalities, that's leadership, against powers,
those that have authority, against the rulers of darkness, of the
darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high
places. And that's the nature of this
struggle. So when he talks about in chapter 12 there, verse one,
there's a sign in heaven. What he's saying is this is a
view from heaven concerning this warfare that we're all engaged
in as the church, as the redeemed of the Lord, the elect of God,
the regenerated, those who stand before God washed in the blood
of Christ and clothed in his righteousness. Now this great
wonder appeared. And what God is showing John
here and us, in essence, is an understanding of the redemption
and the preservation of the church by Christ throughout the last
days, and reminding us that our victory is in him, that we only
gain victory in this warfare by looking to, resting in, running
the race, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
And that's the key. Now this woman, there's a lot
of different ideas about this woman. Some say it's Eve, it's
not Eve. You know the Catholic Church
has really butchered things like this, talking about Mary, and
she is the human mother of the humanity of Christ, we know that. She was blessed above women. You know, that's a good point
too, because Mary was not exalted above women, but she was blessed
above women, wasn't she? Blessed among women. And she
wasn't exalted to any place of worship. She was not called the
mother of God. She wasn't the mother of God.
God has no mother. God is the Alpha and the Omega.
That means he's the self-existent one. He has no beginning and
no end. Mary is not one where to pray to or through in any
way, that's idolatry. You know what Mary was? She was
blessed, but in essence she was a sinner saved by the grace of
God, just like all of us. And so, but I'm not gonna spend
too much time on that. I've given you some things here,
but look at this in verse one. There appeared a great wonder
in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun. Now what does that tell
you? If you go back to the book of
Malachi, you don't have to turn there, but it's in, I thought
I had it, yeah, Malachi chapter four. What is Christ called there,
the coming Messiah? He's called the son, S-U-N, of
righteousness. And here's a woman clothed with
the son. She's clothed in the imputed
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now who is that? Well,
that's every true child of God, isn't it? You see, you don't
find this thing, when we talk about the justification of a
sinner before God, how sinners are made righteous, how sinners
are declared not guilty. That's not one way for you and
another way for me. No, sir. You see, that's why
denominationalism is such a blight on what the world sees as Christianity,
because it's not Christianity at all. You know, it's not one
denomination has their way of how sinners are reconciled to
God, and then another denomination has their way, and they're both
right, they're just going different ways, or they interpret the Bible
differently, oh no. There's one way of reconciliation
before God. There's one ground of reconciliation.
There's one ground of justification, and that's to be clothed with
the sun of righteousness. There's no other way. And that
means I stand before God washed in the blood of Christ and clothed
with his righteousness imputed to me. He took my sins. So that tips you off who this
woman is. It says here the moon is under her feet. Now what is
the moon? A moon is a heavenly body that
shines with the reflected light of the sun. So what does the
church do? the church reflects the light
of Christ. We're shining lights in a dark,
perverse world, aren't we? Crooked and perverse generation.
And we don't shine with our own light. We shine with the light
of the glory of God in Jesus Christ. And somebody said this,
that the moon being under her feet, that stands for, that's
what the church stands on. We stand on the light of the
glory of God. in Christ Jesus. Our foundation
is the Word of God. That's the life. Our foundation
is Christ. That's what we stand on. Just
like sometimes the Bible says that we stand on the rock, Christ
Jesus. Well, here we're standing on
the moon. Same thing. He's our foundation. Everything
that we believe is founded upon the Word of God. and not the
word of men. You know, a lot of times I'll
have people who want to ask questions or they'll want to debate the
scriptures and they'll bring forth ideas that men have. A lot of times I come back with
an answer and I guess they get a little angry with me because
they think I'm kind of smug in doing this. I don't mean to be
smug. Maybe it's just my personality. I don't know. I pray, Lord, help
me do better on that. But one of the things I tell
people all the time, I say, well, you've got one big problem about
what you're saying there. And they'll say, what is it?
And I say, the Bible gets in your way. The Bible doesn't teach
that. And you can't find it in there.
But that's our foundation. If they speak to the law and
to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, there's
no line in them. It says upon her head a crown
of 12 stars. Now that, I believe, symbolizes
the witness of the church through ministers, and I'm not just talking
about pastors and elders, but we're all ministers. The 12 stars
back in, you remember, stars back in Revelation, the first
vision, were the pastors and the preachers and all that, and
that's okay. But we all, the 12 stars means
the complete revelation of God the full revelation of God of
the entire church to the world we preach the gospel and we preach
that which glorifies God and that's what that's talking about
in this issue and verse two it says and she being with child
cried travailing in birth and pain to be delivered now this
is why The Catholic Church, or this is one of the verses, the
Catholic Church will say, well, that woman there is Mary. Well,
there is a historical allusion here. A, not illusion, but allusion,
which means a historical reference that we can connect with the
birth of Christ as he actually come into the world. And of course,
obviously Mary was a big part of that. We don't want to diminish
that. I've often said we don't want to exalt Mary above that
which the scripture gives her, but we don't want to ignore her
blessedness in this thing too. We don't worship her. And again,
she's not the mother of God. God has no mother. She was the
mother of the human nature of Christ, the Messiah, humanity,
body, and soul. But she herself was not sinless. She herself was a sinner saved
by grace. And that's not an insult, my
friend. If it is, I'm insulting all of
us if we're saved. But so there is a, and when you
read through the book of Revelation, you can see historical references,
and that's okay. But you can't limit it and say,
well, now that woman's Mary. That woman's the church, all
right? Mary, you might say, was a representative
in that sense, historically just a symbol of the church. But Christ
came out of his people. Turn over to Hebrews chapter
two. Now physically speaking, historically, he was born of
Mary. And that's a great thing. And
we ought to thank God every day for that. But spiritually speaking,
he was born out of his church in this sense. Look at verse
14 of Hebrews chapter 2. It says, for as much then as
the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also himself
likewise took part of the same, flesh and blood, that through
death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that
is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were
all their lifetime subject unto bondage. For verily he took not
on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of
Abraham." Now that's talking about all of his people. And
it says in verse 17, wherefore for this reason in all things
it behooved him. And I always point out when I
read that verse, that word behooved means he was obligated. But the
word behooved is the Greek word for debt. He was indebted. Now what was his debt? Well,
the debt was our sins imputed to him. He is our surety. Why did he have to be born of
woman? Why did he have to be born of
the seed of Abraham? The children who are flesh because
he's our surety. He had our debt imputed to him
and he had to pay that debt. So it behooved him to be made
like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful
high priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation
for the sins of the people. So Christ, in essence, came out
of his church according to his humanity. Go back to Revelation
12. Well, she was with child, travailing in birth. You could
see Mary being with child, travailing in birth and being pained to
be delivered. Look at verse three. Now, here's
the second sign. The second sign in heaven. There
appeared another wonder in heaven, another sign. And this sign was
something else, a great red dragon. That's Satan. This is very symbolic language
now. He's symbolized by a dragon because
of his ferocity, his appetite. Because red is the color of sin. Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be as wool. Though they be red like crimson,
white as snow. Red is the color of war. This
is a warlike, ferocious animal that cannot be tamed, but who
must be defeated. That's the sign. He had seven
heads and ten horns and seven crowns upon his head. Are there historical references
here that we can connect this to? We don't know for sure. Some commentators say, well,
the people in John's day, they would have thought of Rome. Seven
heads and ten horns, seven heads, Rome sat on seven hills. Rome
was the ungodly, unchristian, anti-christian government at
that time. And there's no doubt of that.
Ten horns, the succession of the ten Roman emperors who really
persecuted the church. Seven crowns upon his head. That's
talking about the completeness of Satan's dominion over the
earth. Seven being the number of the
finished work. In other words, Satan has been
given... You know, Satan in the Bible is called the prince of
this world. But we know who's in control, don't we? We know
who's the sovereign of the universe. And here's, I know some people
don't like to hear it this way, but it's true, if you read the
Bible. Satan is on God's leash. Satan can't do anything that
God doesn't allow him to do. And somebody says, well then,
you know, you get into the philosophizing there, you know, well then how
can God be good and allow this to happen and all that? That's
not what we're talking about today. And man has no answer
to that problem, I can tell you that right now, other than denying
the God of the Bible. and elevating himself. But you
could connect these to some historical references, but what I want you
to see is this. What Satan is described here
as being or doing has to do with his warfare, not just in the
early Christian era, when Rome was taking Christians out in
the arena and feeding them to lions. That was part of it, but
it's all that's going on even today. against Christians, true
Christians now. And of course, to understand
that, you got to know what a Christian is. Do you know that a lot of
the persecution that comes from the red dragon in the last days
comes from people who call themselves Christian, persecuting true Christians. And it's not always a physical
persecution. In fact, it's more of a spiritual
persecution. We've seen that already in Revelation.
When the church first began, there was a great physical persecution
that pervaded the Roman Empire. And you remember how Christians
were scattered throughout the world preaching the gospel. But
now, Now the persecution is more through deception, compromise,
lies. 2 Thessalonians 2 talks about
the lying wonders, the deceitfulness of righteousness. of unrighteousness,
rather. In other words, it's an unrighteousness
that is deceptive. Now, that's not to say there
won't be any physical persecution of believers. There'll be some.
But Satan's main way of working, we're going to see as we go through
this, is through his lies, his deceptions. It's a spiritual
thing. And it's a persecution to Christians
because society, the world society, the anti-Christian governments
and anti-Christian religions will ostracize and alienate true
believers. Now you all have experienced
some of that, haven't you? I have too. We all have. You've got
family members, don't you, that won't even speak to you. about
this gospel because they know where you're, they don't believe
it, but they know at least where you're coming from. Don't want
to hear any of it. You've got, you've got people
who call themselves Christian and says, you can't teach that
anymore in our church. That right. That's happened. Oh, we don't believe that, you
know, so that deception, but we're like I said, we'll see
more of that later on, but look here. So Satan here, the great
red dragon, seven heads and ten horns, seven meaning that he's
got the complete dominion over the earth. The ten horns could
symbolize, somebody said, I've got in your lesson here. These
are just possibilities. But understand now, it's not
just related to that one particular time in history. It goes throughout.
But like Rome was divided into ten separate kingdoms, all raised
up for God's purpose. And they all represent the persecuting
powers of Satan that operate through all the nations of the
world. Now you remember, Satan was loose
to do what? Remember when Christ said that
He loosed him out of the bottomless pit to do what? To deceive the
nations. Not just Rome, but all nations,
all nations of the world. All right, look at verse four,
and this will be our last one today. It says, his tail drew
the third part of the stars of heaven and did cast them to the
earth. Now, I believe that word cast
them to the earth means to kill them. And I really, what I believe
he's talking about here is, and a lot of commentators say, well,
this refers to Satan's fall and the angels that fell with him,
but I believe the context more likely points to persecution
of the ministers of Christ. All 12 apostles were persecuted
and martyred except for John, and John, here he's on the Isle
of Patmos. Stephen was martyred. You could
go on down through the time There were more, you know, that was
just the beginning of it. But a third part simply means
that a great number of Christ's witnesses were killed. And they
were persecuted, they were cast them to the earth. But, here's
the thing, look on. It didn't kill the church. He
says, and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to
be delivered for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
Now you can see that in two ways. Give it the historical reference.
Think about when Mary had the Christ child. Think about the
wicked King Herod. What did he do? Well, later on,
I think it was about two years later, or a year later, he set
out a decree that every male born in Judea, that was two years,
I think he said two years or less, I think, I'd have to go
back and look at it, that they'd be killed. And then what happened? We're going to see next week
where she fled into the desert. Her and Joseph fled to Egypt.
Well, in essence, spiritually speaking, the same thing happened
to the church. When the church, the New Testament church, was
inaugurated at Pentecost, you could say that was a birth, so
to speak, and What happened? 3,000 were saved. And then later
on, 5,000. And the word began to spread,
and then what happened? Satan began his persecution. He used a man named Saul. It says in Acts chapter, what
is it, nine? He says, Saul made havoc of the
church, and it was scattered into the desert. But what happened? Did Herod kill the Messiah? No, he was defeated. The Messiah
rose and did his great work. Did Satan kill the church? No. The word of God began to be spread
throughout. And that same man who made havoc
of the church was converted by the miraculous power of Almighty
God and was used more than any other apostle to plant churches
all around the Gentile world. God's church will never be defeated.
As I said, this is the warfare, but the outcome has always been
decided. Christ will have victory. His
church will have victory in Him. All right.